Lemon Grass
by So Teeny
Summary: [Parental!Roy and Ed][Edward's PoV][One shot] There's always something that lingers around the Colonel that helps him remember what happiness is.


_Well yeah, I was writing 52 Flavours and, well the Papa!Roy and Ed-ness just can never stop because I find a lack of it here, so I decided to write this fic! -cheers- Anyways, why lemon grass, you say? Well, I've had my share with the pure, enlightening scent of it. My dad brought us home some nice lemon grass tea which was very taste, and the smell always lingered around the house. I just captured that memory and found it to be so suitable. So here we go! I hope you enjoy this! I do not own Fullmetal Alchemist, Hiromu Arakawa does, so there._

_Lain Blackchurch_

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**Lemon Grass**

I believe that I've tried about a thousand times now. Mustang's pen is running out of ink and I think the bastard's also running out of paper... and I'm completely without patience. He told me that it was supposed to be simple, simple to remember a plain array from twelve years ago to make a paper crane. That should have been just... easy.

But apparently, it isn't.

I feel my mind frantically running through itself, sifting through arrays, memorized from so many years of research, but I can't seem to make this happen... I... I just can't. And I don't like to say it... but it's true. It's been at least two hours that I've been sitting in this hard chair and my ass is completely numb...

I can see him walking around his desk, and he disappears through the door. I don't really feel the will to turn my neck, not anymore, so I just wonder why he left me in here. My hands fall into my lap, my back curves, and the pen clatters to the floor lightly.

It's hopeless... isn't it?

I'm hopeless.

I remember a time when making paper cranes from alchemy was so simple, just an array drawn on a sheet of paper and some form of equivalent exchange... dust or ash, anything. You could even use the paper itself if that was what you wished. It would some how fold up and there, you would have a paper bird. It was that simple.

My head starts to hurt now, I don't really know why, but it does... I feel some hair drape onto my face, but I don't feel like brushing it off either... not in the mood.

Footsteps. The shut of a door. Not looking up.

Something warm is pressed into my hands, something smooth that emits a soft, rising steam that is hot in my face. I shiver, but don't move from my spot. I'm just in taking the scent that the liquid in the cup brings as it drifts into my face. "You might want to drink that before it gets cold," is all he says in a clipped but gentle voice.

I don't move.

It's not worth it anymore.

Maybe I'll forget other things too... it's not impossible to loose things over time, just look at... well, I can't really look at anyone anymore. My head feels like it's just been hit by one of those huge encyclopedias in the library. It throbs with this white hot sensation that I can't really do much about.

There's a hand on my shoulder now. It's hot too, but I don't brush it off. I scorn the heat, and yet want more, hoping that maybe it'll help me remember what it was like to perform alchemy without a care in the world. When all that mattered was to please Mom... I set the cup on the desk in a slow manner.

"Let's go for a walk then... would you like that?"

He's talking to me softly, in this autumnal whispery voice that's really easy on the ears but a bit hard to understand. I've never really heard him speak like that, least of all to me, but he does and he squeezes my shoulder. "Look at me now," he says. "I want to make sure that you're listening to me..."

Don't turn your head, I think. Just don't look at him and maybe you'll wake up and find out that this is all just a bad dream. Just my anxieties pooled into one nightmare or something... soon enough Nina will walk in, skipping rope or carrying her box of crayons. Yeah... maybe—

Mustang jerks my chin forwards and pulls me out of my seat. I stumble slightly, knees buckling, but he yanks me back up by my arm so that we're back to front and I'm leaning on him slightly. "I think a walk is what you need... clear that thing on your shoulders that you call a head. Remember now Ed, you should have brains in there, not rocks."

I don't reply.

He nudges me in the back with his hand, grabbing my navy blue, military coat as well as his own. I feel like a doll basically, his hands swiftly being able to slide my arm through the sleeves. He straightens the lapels of the coat and leads me down the empty halls.

For some reason I'm feeling this strange heat. It's everywhere, in my head, in the air, on Mustang as he pushes me forward. A trickle of sweat runs down the side of my face starting at my temples, but I do not think much of it. As we step outside, the blast from the wind is great. Our boots crunch in the snow as we are down the steps.

I breathe out, and there is a white cloud of frosted carbon dioxide. His gloved hand takes mine and we're off, down the busy streets paved with snow and people walking along. It's a strange feeling, being hand in hand with someone I'd normally scorn, but at the same time it feels really nice, comforting almost.

As we stroll on, two little children whiz past us. One is a girl wearing a small square of translucent fabric on her head. She steps forward daintily and suddenly takes a deep breath calling "HURRY UP, PHINEAS! YOU SLOWPOKE!" The boy who is following her comes stumbling to her side, and I notice immediately that he's somehow strapped a pair of cardboard wings to his back. They flop around, brown and hard.

"I'm here, Sophie," he puffs. Mustang looks down at me, I can feel his look and he stops, suddenly pulling me to his front again and draping his arms around my shoulders like one would do a scarf. Maybe he's interested too, or maybe he's just sensing my curiosity at the child's play set before us.

I'm the kid in the cardboard wings, I think. Only I fell on the wet ground and now my wings are wet and I can't fly anymore.

It is then, when I take a deep breath to sigh, I scent something faint in the air around me. It's like a hovering bee, making its presence constant. Sure, I've smelt it before, but now it's just... just all around me like when I wake up in the morning to find a thin sheet of white linen over my head. Al says that he sometimes thinks that I'd get lost under there some day.

The smell isn't unpleasant, it is pungent and very nice. It's lemon grass, I believe. Mom used to make lemon grass tea, that was... That was what he gave me, I recall silently, standing there. He wears the scent of lemon grass, that's just what it is, delicate and fragrant. I like it... very soothing...

The little boy suddenly falls on a patch of ice and lands flat on his butt. It looks like it hurts, and apparently, it does because I can see the glitter of tears and hear him wailing "SOPHIEEEE!" The girl walks up to him and helps him up, dusting off his cardboard wings.

"You hafta' be careful, Phineas, those wings Mommy made for you won't work if you get them wet, ya know..." She says it all a-matter-of-factly and puts her hands on her hips. I sigh, as does Mustang, and he turns me around. We begin to walk onwards.

"I remember when you used to play like that sometimes when you thought no one was looking, Ed..." he said smiling. I can't really hear him all that well right now because there's this annoying ringing in my ears... it hurts too. The pounding in my head still hasn't gone away. "You and Al would play cards, or sometimes would pretend when you had nothing better to do... I would try and catch a glimpse of it if I could."

So what? I ask myself. Doesn't really bother me all that much.

"Ed..." He shakes my shoulders lightly. "You need to lighten up, that's why you're here and not in my stuffy office, damn it."

Maybe he's caught on that I'm not really listening and that's why there's the long silence. His hand is suddenly absent from mine, and my heart thuds much faster than before.

"I remember when I would pick you up like this," he said and suddenly lifted me with ease onto his back, gripping my legs. On impulse, I cling to his shoulders. "You didn't like it, but a lot of other people got a kick out of seeing you on my back, didn't they?"

He starts running, causing me to jolt a bit.

"The hell--?" I begin, but he shushes me loudly.

"Sometimes, if I felt like it, I'd put you on my shoulders and you'd say 'HAH! Bastard! Now you can't say I'm short anymore!' but then I would put you down again and you would look all flustered and everything..."

And that's when I find my voice.

"You look like an idiot," I mumble briefly.

He laughs. "Don't you of all people know it, Ed..."

And there, he sets me down and takes my hand once more, now swinging it and humming a soft tune. We have earned the stares of some parents, who are smiling at us, and then a few giggles from the children beside them.

We walk back to the base, the snow now flurrying around us. Heading back to his office now, we say nothing until we are there, the door is closed and unwelcome ears shut out.

"Now... will you try again?" he asks.

I look up, and nod in a small manner.

He takes out a piece of paper and shakes it. "This is my last one... okay? Do it right." He then passes it to me with a pen. "Go."

I take hold of the stylus and twist it between my fingers with a sigh, lowering my eyes and sketching an array upon the paper. This... this memory... it's still not coming back, damn it... I don't remember what the hell made this array fucking tick!

I hesitantly raise my hand over it, but before I can press it down, Mustang lashes his hand out and holds my wrist just an inch above the paper. He smirks. "Think happy thoughts, Ed," he whispers before slamming my hand onto the array and letting go. I gasp slightly as a yellow light filters through the room.

Happy...

That's going to be hard, I think, but shake my head. That's not a very happy thought. I concentrate and why not listen to the bastard? I've tried everything else to remember.

I start with Alphonse as the paper slowly begins to fold itself. I remember the way our skin felt went we hugged each other so many years back. Then comes Mom, when she took us both in her arms, she smelled like lavender, from the back of the garden. That was just so nice. Her skin was soft and warm when it touched my cheek...

I remember rainy days when Alphonse and I would curl up in our father's library, reading books together, sometimes sharing with one book and smiling at theories.

And then... I try to think of the now as the crane slowly begins to come to life beneath my fingertips as a paper sculpture. Lemon grass, damn it! I can't get it out of my mind, no matter how hard I try. It's a nice thought, so I dote upon it to finish the transmutation.

I don't know why it's such a happy thing to muse upon. A small voice in my head says 'You enjoy it... it's something that you probably find comfort in, isn't it?' I find that this... voice inside of my head is most likely right. It's always here, always lingered, just never as strongly as now, and I wonder now if fate did that on purpose.

Whenever I step into this office, it's here, waiting for me. Friends conversation or argument, dull news or exciting riddles in alchemy, it doesn't really care, it just wraps itself around me and fills my head with the calmness that is sometimes required when dealing with an egotistical bastard... or... someone who only seems to be like that on the outside.

"Fullmetal..." Roy says, reaching over and shaking my shoulder. I wince slightly, eyes closed, but open one to see if my transmutation worked.

There, sitting where the paper once was, is a small, yellowed paper crane, wings bent nice and neat. I shake my head, just to make sure that it isn't a crumpled up piece of paper like the others had been, but it isn't. Mustang lifts it up delicately between his thumb and first three fingers.

"It's lovely, Edward..." he says, I find a small grin coming to my lips. It just comes... and I'm feeling positively better. He walks over and kneels beside my chair, looking at me with a self-sated smile. He puts his hand to my brow for a moment before returning to look at the crane...

But I don't give him the chance to and throw myself onto him, causing him to fall on his ass. He doesn't seem to mind though, so long as he holds the crane aloft in the air to protect it from my now flowing tears of happiness and my weight.

I nuzzle my face into his neck and let out a long, happy cry. "I don't ever want to forget... never forget..." I say, trying to reassure myself secretly that I won't.

And he pats my back softly, hand less hotter this time. "I don't think you will if you keep thinking those thoughts, Edward..." I raise my head and he knows to dismiss me immediately. But just as I am about to shut the door, jacket slung over my two fingers, I watch as he eyes the crane in between his fingers for a few more minutes before setting it upon his desk.

And I smile, shutting the door and trotting down the hall.

It's a nice day...


End file.
